Activate the News
Riding the news cycle doesn't have to be passive
Some people ask me how I can put up with curating dozens of news stories from multiple outlets day after day, presenting them here and on other platforms without falling into a clinical depression.
After all, the news is almost all bad and it never stops — it just cycles and cycles around the world as if a global newspaper boy were throwing thick folded papers at our front door every few minutes.
If you just let the reports bounce off, unread, they’ll pile up faster than autumn leaves. If you read them carefully, you might be in danger of growing suicidal.
But journalists get used to living by the news cycle. They get high off of a big story. Some people would call that an addiction. If so, withdrawal is hard too — don’t expect many smiles in a newsroom on a slow news day.
But everyone, including journalists, has a choice when it comes to the news. We can remain passive and consume it as if it were a plate of food or we can decide to try and do something about it.
Among the people who scan the curated headlines I present every day are a few friends who recently decided to try and do something about one particular story in my daily news feed.
They are making an effort to help my young Afghan friend/correspondent escape from his country, where he is currently trapped under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
These friends have worked behind the scenes to explore options for my correspondent to seek asylum somewhere else. It will be a hazardous, arduous process, far from certain to be successful. A lot could go wrong. The risks to him are substantial.
But as of today, a copy of his passport is in the hands of a pro-bono immigration attorney in the West and a small network of friends are standing by to help. Stay tuned in the coming weeks to find out how this story ends.
FRIDAY’S HEADLINES:
‘We are pulling out all the stops’: White House details strategies to combat delta, omicron variants (WP)
The United States and Germany joined countries around the globe planning stricter COVID-19 restrictions as the new Omicron variant rattled markets, fearful it could choke a tentative economic recovery from the pandemic. (Reuters)
Scientists Studying Omicron See Rise in Covid Reinfections
Scientists in South Africa tracking the spread of the variant are seeing a rise in coronavirus reinfections in people who had recovered from Covid-19, suggesting previous infection provides less protection against the new variant. (WSJ)
Omicron drives new urgency for global pandemic treaty (Politico)
Moderna could have a COVID-19 booster shot targeting the Omicron variant tested and ready to file for U.S. authorization as soon as March, the company's president said. (Reuters)
Omicron may cause more Covid reinfections, say South African experts (Guardian)
GlaxoSmithKline said that a lab analysis of the antibody-based COVID-19 therapy it is developing with U.S. partner Vir has shown the drug is effective against Omicron. (Reuters)
Brazil enters recession as inflation grips economy (Financial Times)
While Politics Consume School Board Meetings, a Very Different Crisis Festers — In a wealthy suburban Philadelphia district, schools are struggling with shortages of all sorts. Behavioral problems have mushroomed. “We are in triage mode,” one teacher said. (NYT)
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack voted to hold Jeffrey Clark, a former Department of Justice official, criminally accountable for his failure to cooperate with the panel. If the full House approves it, Clark can be criminally charged. He is the second ally of former President Donald Trump to be held in contempt by the panel, after Steve Bannon. [HuffPost]
Desperate to overturn his election loss, former President Donald Trump's team spun a sprawling voter-fraud fiction, casting two Georgia election workers as the main villains. Read our special report on the conspiracy theory hatched by Trump's campaign. (Reuters)
Potential loss of Roe v. Wade as a legal standard shakes political landscape (WP)
Less than a month after Texas’ six-week abortion ban went into effect in September, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) quietly signed another anti-choice bill that restricts access to medication abortion. On Thursday, that restriction became law, largely cutting off what little access Texans had left to abortion care. Across the country, medication abortion is the most common abortion method for people who are 10 weeks pregnant or less. [HuffPost]
Republicans Hope Their Assault on Democracy Will Stop a Post-Roe Backlash
Conservatives on the Supreme Court have engineered a system that allows half the country’s population to be stripped of a fundamental constitutional right. (Atlantic)
Roberts Searches for Middle Ground in Abortion Case — The chief justice, known for his incremental approach to contentious issues, explored on Wednesday whether the court could uphold Mississippi’s law without totally throwing out Roe v. Wade. (NYT)
Big Tech Privacy Moves Spur Companies to Amass Customer Data
Marketers are staging sweepstakes, quizzes and events to gather people’s personal information and build detailed profiles—a response to Apple’s “opt in” policy for apps and Google’s plan to restrict user tracking in its browser. (WSJ)
A group of Senate Republicans is plotting to hold up a government funding bill this week to dramatize their dislike of President Joe Biden's efforts to encourage vaccination against COVID-19. Shutting down the government — at a moment when Republicans have lots of political momentum and are poised to retake at least one chamber of Congress — is a highly questionable strategy and not all Republicans are on board. [HuffPost]
Russia deploys missile system on island near Japan (NHK)
Symone Sanders, senior adviser to Vice President Harris, will leave post (WP)
Global stocks will shake off recent weakness and rise over the next 12 months but at a more tempered pace than this year's rally, found a Reuters poll of equity analysts who also said a correction was likely in the next six months. (Reuters)
Trump interacted with Gold Star families, White House staff, donors at a fundraiser, then-Democratic nominee Joe Biden and many others despite knowing that he had tested positive for COVID-19, according to a new book from former chief of staff Mark Meadows. “The whole episode demonstrates a total disregard for public health and the well-being of others,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director. [HuffPost]
Winter heat wave sets December records in four U.S. states, Canada (WP)
California state officials say that major water agencies won’t get any of the water they’ve requested and that mandatory restrictions could be coming (AP)
‘Call Me Dog Tag Man’: Pacific Island Is Full of War Relics and Human Remains — More than 75 years after the Battle of Biak ended, collectors are still finding remnants of the fight, and U.S. authorities are hoping to bring closure to families of soldiers still missing. (NYT)
Curious leopard enters classroom in India (BBC)
‘Aspirational’ Amtrak Map Depicts Train Car Married, Happy, With Little Caboose Baby (The Onion)
FRIDAY’s LYRICS:
“Running Kind”
By Merle Haggard
I was born the runnin' kind
With leavin' always on my mind
Home was never home to me at any time
Every front door found me hopin'
I would find the back door open
There just had to be an exit
For the runnin' kind
Within me there's a prison
Surrounding me alone
As real as any dungeon with its walls of stone
I know runnin's not the answer
Yeah, but runnin's been my nature
And a part of me
That keeps me movin' on
I was born the runnin' kind
With leavin' always on my mind
Home was never home to me at any time
Every front door found me hopin'
I would find the back door open
There just had to be an exit
For the runnin' kind
I was born the runnin' kind
With leavin' always on my mind
Home was never home to me at any time
Every front door found me hopin'
I would find the back door open
There just had to be an exit
For the runnin' kind